Author: Zuzanna Lenart

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Pebble Showcases Advanced Playout Solutions at CABSAT 2025

Posted on | by Zuzanna Lenart

Epsom, Surrey, UK, 1 May 2025: Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will be showcasing its proven playout solutions at CABSAT 2025 (Dubai World Trade Centre, 13-15 May). With 25 years of expertise in the broadcast industry, Pebble continues to deliver mission-critical technologies that empower broadcasters across the Middle East and North Africa region..

“The MENA region represents a vital and growing market for Pebble, with its dynamic broadcast ecosystem and rapid technological advancement,” said Peter Mayhead, CEO of Pebble. “Our quarter-century of experience in developing robust, secure, and feature-rich automation systems positions us perfectly to meet the evolving needs of broadcasters throughout this important region.”

Pebble specialises in playout automation that scales effortlessly from single channel to large multi-service facilities. Automation 2.0, the company’s management software, provides seamless control over both modular playout architectures and the all-in-one Integrated Channel engine. With support for SDI, SMPTE ST2110, and NDI content flows, these solutions help broadcasters throughout the MENA region navigate complex industry transitions.

With broadcasters and service providers increasingly working across multiple sites, Pebble’s Remote platform offers web-based monitoring and control capabilities that are particularly beneficial in the MENA region. This solution provides secure channel management from within or outside traditional transmission facilities, addressing the specific operational needs of regional media organisations.

Pebble’s technology is trusted in a growing number of deployments across the region and beyond. In Saudi Arabia, Asharq News commissioning is under way for their 3+3+3 triple-redundant ST 2110 setup using Pebble’s Integrated Channel and Enterprise Automation, commissioned via partner Qvest Media. Also in KSA, Intigral (part of Saudi Telecom – STC) is implementing 8+8 playout channels with integrated ingest and content management. In Egypt, ONTV recently completed an upgrade to a 5-channel automation system with full redundancy, integrated via partner Systems Design, with the enhanced channels now on-air. In Jordan, a tightly aligned disaster recovery setup has been deployed for Al Mamlaka TV, ensuring continuity with the main playout system.

Beyond the region, Pebble is supporting Azam Media in Tanzania as it expands its playout system from 8 to 12 fully redundant channels.

With 25 years dedicated exclusively to playout and media workflows, Pebble has developed technology renowned for its resilience and reliability.

“CABSAT is an ideal opportunity for us to meet with broadcasters across the Middle East and North Africa, understand the challenges they’re facing, and demonstrate how our technology can help solve them,” said Mayhead. “As broadcasting continues to evolve in this region, we’re committed to delivering the dependable, flexible solutions media organisations need to stay competitive.”

Visit Pebble at CABSAT 2025 and discover more at www.pebble.tv.

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Meet us at BroadcastAsia 2025

Posted on | by Zuzanna Lenart

You’ll find us at Singapore Expo, Stand 5I1-9 – and we’d love to see you there!

Whether you’d like to reconnect, hear what’s new at Pebble, or explore how we could work together, feel free to book a meeting using the form below. We’ll get back to confirm a time.

Our team can’t wait to meet you in Singapore!

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Meet us at CABSAT 2025

Posted on | by Zuzanna Lenart

You’ll find us at Shk Saeed Hall 1, Stand S1-G21 – we’d love to see you there!

Whether you’d like to catch up, hear what’s new at Pebble, or explore how we could work together, feel free to book a meeting using the form below. We’ll get back to confirm a time.

Can’t wait to meet you in Dubai!

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Leading playout automation for 25 years

Posted on | by Zuzanna Lenart

In the ever-evolving broadcast industry, choosing the right playout automation provider is crucial. Sally Wallington, Pebble SVP of Sales, shares her expertise on what broadcasters must consider to ensure they select a system that truly fits their needs.

A quarter of a century ago, playout automation was already a well-established technology, but it looked very different from today’s sophisticated systems. Back then, automation was primarily about device control – dedicated real-time hardware sending commands over serial busses to a variety of devices, many of which had only limited functionality. 

Virtually all content was on tapes inside robot libraries, so the automation had to be constantly looking ahead to ensure the right tapes were loaded into the players and calculating pre-rolls. For economy, some broadcasters put multiple spots on each tape, which meant the automation had to compile breaks during the previous programme segment. It was all very exciting. 

One could argue that today’s playout automation – dealing with networked devices and servers which provide instant start to all the content required – is much simpler. But other challenges have arisen: where the turn of the century playout system would handle a single channel, now the expectation is for multiple variants of each service, to meet localisation needs and international legal variations. Individual operations have been replaced in many cases by playout centres handling hundreds of channels. 

Pebble’s founders had already been deeply involved in playout automation for years, shaping earlier generations of the technology. They knew what was really important for users, and when they started the business they established a set of principles for excellence. Those same guidelines continue to drive Pebble’s approach today, ensuring its solutions evolve to meet the demands of modern playout. 

Playout automation is mission-critical. If a broadcaster cannot deliver programmes it has no audience; if it cannot deliver commercials it has no revenue. Interruptions to programmes cause reputational damage; dropping commercial spots means no income. Together, they pose a serious risk to a broadcaster’s success. 

So in choosing an automation supplier, a broadcaster must first of all identify the vendor who understands the issues involved, can demonstrate proven solutions, and, perhaps most important, can develop long-term relationships to ensure that support will always be there, whatever the future challenges. 

What are the issues for playout systems? Most important is reliability. In the modern, software-centric environment five nines reliability – 99.999 per cent up time – is the absolute minimum expectation, and six nines should probably be the goal. 

That means stable software on redundant hardware and communications networks, with no single point of failure and large margins of excess processor power, network capacity and storage space. 

Second, agility. No two workflows are the same, and the playout vendor should not be dictating how a broadcaster works. The software should adapt readily to the best configuration for the application. Completely flexible and reliable interfaces, preferably based on open standards, should allow for connection to best of breed devices from any other vendor where required. Integrated channel platforms still need ready integration, to storage networks and to planning and monitoring systems. 

Third, the system should be supportive. Where operator interventions are required, they must be intuitive and logical. Above all, it should be impossible to do something wrong. Anyone in the broadcast industry will be familiar with disastrous mistakes in the playout suite, where the output has been switched at a critical moment. Your networks should never be subject to such dangers. 

Finally, it must be secure. Cyberthreats are the modern world’s nightmare, and any mission-critical technology must be hardened against challenges, with protections continually updated as the bad guys come up with fresh ideas. 

Pebble was founded in 2000 on the basis of delivering the most trusted, reliable and feature-rich playout technology. That remains true today.

This article was originally published in TVBEurope.

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Pebble provides playout for SRF facility

Posted on | by Zuzanna Lenart

Epsom, Surrey, UK, 18 March 2025: Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, has completed the development and implementation of the playout functionality for Swiss national broadcaster, SRF. The project involved collaboration with multiple vendors to achieve seamless workflows in the all-IP environment. 

SRF has relocated to a purpose-built headquarters in Zurich. A key element of the project is to take advantage of next-generation workflows and operational practices by leveraging modern, standards-based technologies. The result is one of the largest media environments using interworking SMPTE ST 2110 equipment in Europe. 

Central to the new facility is secure and highly resilient playout of the three premium channels in German-speaking Switzerland: SRF 1, SRF zwei and SRF info. The multiple variants of these channels, to meet the needs of different delivery platforms, are managed and played out using Pebble Integrated Channel software devices, under the control of the proven Pebble Automation. 

Vital to the project was the integration of the playout system into the wider media and information flows across the IP networks. As content is required it is pulled from central storage servers into the Integrated Channel devices. To achieve this seamless integration, the whole environment using the NMOS protocol from AMWA as the interface. 

As well as pre-recorded content, the Pebble system also routinely delivers live content, accepted directly into the Integrated Channel software appliances. Drawing on information from the scheduling system and elsewhere, Pebble Automation adds live graphics as required, by controlling VizRT graphics, running as plug-ins. Audio processing includes channel management, Dolby E and loudness monitoring and control. 

“This has been a highly trustful collaboration between SRF and Pebble,” said Martin Sauter, Project Manager at SRF. “Pebble understood the challenges we faced and sought to work with us closely every step of the way to achieve the common goal of a successful ST 2110 playout centre that fulfils our needs.” 

Sally Wallington, SVP Sales at Pebble added “This has been a complex project, with not only requirements and workflows developing along the way, but the entire foundation of SMPTE ST 2110 and NMOS coalescing to give us the practical tools we need for seamless interworking. Thanks to the professionalism as well as the enthusiasm of the SRF engineering team, it was immensely satisfying for us. Everyone from Pebble who worked on it sees the new Zurich centre as a tremendous achievement and we are very proud to have played our part.” 

For more information, see www.pebble.tv

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